Easy Prey

Sept 10 2012

The summer of wolves.

An abundance of deer, this year,

easy pickings.

I hear them howl

from 2 directions,

the call and response

of territory

and threat.

And something primordial

in this ungodly chorus

sends a thrill up my neck,

every sense

on hair-trigger alert.

I feel, like them

the intensity of being alive,

as every night

their zeal for living

bursts out, uncontained.

An ancient sound, proclaiming

mastery

belonging

the ties of blood.

I am told my dog

is 90% wolf.

Yet she remains indifferent

to her rightful inheritance,

as she sticks to my side

straining, sniffing

eager for praise.

All the wildness

bred out,

in our collective mission

to civilize

every inch of the world.

But I am elated

at the sound,

filling cool still silence.

And thrilled to know

we are not alone.

That our presumption of control

is a brave delusion,

our dominion

not absolute.

The wolves are restless, tonight.

I test the latch

keep the porch light burning.

The wolves howl like clockwork. On the night I wrote this poem, the pooch and I were out walking after dark. I was hoping to see in her some acknowledgement, some excitement, at the sound. But she remained unmoved, indifferent. I suppose she has drifted too far from her ancestors to feel the call of the wild; to share with me the excited thrill up the spine. 

(And in the spirit of encounters with nature, I'll refrain from mentioning the unmistakeable print of a bear paw on my front door last week; just in case my mother is listening!)